Mrs. John Doe

Chapter 38

Key. Ignition. Lights. Windshield wipers. The car was an automatic, thank God, but she reached down with her right hand for the gearshift. The big man was pounding this way, his huge arms working like pistons. Left hand, she commanded herself. Her left hand fumbled awkwardly down to the lever and she pushed it from P to D and slammed her right foot-right, not left!-down on the accelerator. The car lunged forward, directly into the back end of the SUV parked in front of her. A dull crunch. Reverse, reverse, push backward for reverse…

Another quick glance at Andy Gilbert through the row of parked cars ahead. He was three cars away now, closing in, his right hand touching his ear, his lips moving. He was speaking into a headset. Reverse-the car jerked back, away from the dented fender of the SUV, and smashed into the front bumper of the car behind her. She was thrown forward, grasping the steering wheel to avoid colliding with it. She twisted the wheel to the right and hit the accelerator again, and the Focus shot out of the space into the street. A blaring horn, the sudden shriek of brakes on wet asphalt just behind her, and the blinding glare of headlights from the bright red car she’d just cut off. More honking. She saw in the rearview mirror that a line of cars had come to a sudden stop, thanks to her. Ignoring the horns and the angry shouts, she straightened the front end of the car and pressed the accelerator again.

He’d seen what she was doing, so he was clearly planning on heading her off. He pivoted on the sidewalk and shot out between two parked cars just ahead of her, directly into her path, raising his arms in front of him.

“Stop!” he bellowed.

Her headlights caught the look on his face, the widening of his eyes and the opening of his mouth as he realized that she was not going to obey him. She pressed down harder on the pedal, shutting her eyes and bracing for the inevitable impact. He must have tried to leap out of the way, because the thump, when it came, was on the left side of the car, not the center. Against her will, her eyes opened, and she saw. Andy Gilbert fell forward across the left side of the hood, then bounced and flew off to the side, the back of his head smashing into a window of the parked car behind him, shattering it. The Focus slid past and headed for the intersection. A red light.

Nora stomped her left foot down on the brake and skidded to a stop on the wet road just as a young woman with an umbrella stepped out in front of her. Turn signal, turn signal…there. Turn left, she instructed herself, into the left lane, not the right lane. The blinker blinked, the wipers swept rhythmically back and forth across the windshield, and the red car she’d nearly sideswiped came to a stop behind her. The driver, a middle-aged man, was leaning his head out his window, shouting and gesticulating at her, pointing back the way they’d come. He’d seen the collision, and he was berating her for leaving the scene of an accident.

She peered into the rearview mirror, straining to see through the rain. A large, dark figure was crumpled in the street beside the parked car some thirty yards behind her, and other pedestrians were arriving there. A gaggle of umbrellas closed in on the spot, and she heard more shouting. It had seemed so artificial to her, so choreographed, the impact and the body bouncing gracefully back into the other car, smashing the breakaway window like a stuntman in a Bruce Willis movie. It couldn’t have been real, could it? She couldn’t possibly have just killed a man.

The man in the red car was opening his door, preparing to get out and give her a piece of his mind. He’d make a citizen’s arrest, no doubt, and she would be taken to a precinct station and charged with vehicular manslaughter, held without bail, her passport confiscated, and tomorrow afternoon Jeff would die. Her husband was alone and afraid and probably injured in some remote place, and she was his only hope of survival. No, she thought. No! This clown in the red car will not detain me. If I killed Andy Gilbert, so be it. I must find my husband. That’s what matters. That’s all that matters. The man was out of the car now, moving toward her driver’s door, an angry scowl on his face, and now he would-

Nora didn’t even think; she merely acted. She spun the wheel to the left and mashed her boot down on the accelerator. The Focus slued sideways, the tires sliding in the rain as she made the turn before the light had changed. The whine of the engine and the screech of the tires filled her ears, but they weren’t as deafening to her as the pounding in her chest. She struggled to draw breath. Go, go, go, go. Her mind repeated the word over and over as the car shot forward and flew off down the quiet side street.

And there was Craig, caught in the headlights, standing on the sidewalk in front of the pub, staring as she bore down on him. She shuddered to a stop beside him, stalling the engine in the process. She managed to slide the gearshift into neutral before throwing herself over into the passenger seat, sobbing, feeling blindly for the seatbelt. By the time she’d strapped herself in, he was in the driver’s seat and maneuvering the car forward toward the next intersection.

“What is it?” he asked, glancing over at her. “What’s wrong?”

It took her a few moments of hyperventilated gasping before she could draw enough breath to speak. “I-I think I killed him.”

“What?” he cried. “Who?”

Another gasp, another hiccup. She fought for control, but panic was setting in. “Gil-Gilbert. Andy Gilbert. I hit him with-with the car.”

Now it was Craig’s turn to gasp, and he muttered a word she’d once berated Dana for using. Then he said, “Where was Andy Gilbert when you first saw him?”

“In front of your building,” she said, breathing more deeply now. “He was waiting there for you. He must have killed Bill and Viv, and your friend Wendy. He saw me when I got in the car, and he-he ran right out in front of me. I knocked him down, and the man in the car behind me started to-”

As if on cue, a loud honking began behind them. Nora turned in her seat and peered through the rain at two bright headlights. Her eyes adjusted to the glare, and she saw a red car, just like…

“Oh God, that’s him!” she cried. “That’s the man who was behind me! He’s following us!”

Craig glanced briefly in the rearview mirror. Very briefly.

“Hang on,” he said, and they sped through an intersection just as the lights changed. A late pedestrian, a tall young man, cried out and leaped for the curb as they flew past him. The squeal of tires behind them told her that the red car had been caught by the light, and the civic-minded busybody-unlike Craig-was obeying the traffic laws.

Craig turned the car into another wide street, then another. She had no idea where they were; they might be heading north now, but she wasn’t sure. No, there was Hyde Park again. East-they were traveling east. She fell back against the seat and shut her eyes, content to let him steer them out of this, and concentrated on breathing evenly once more. Bright lights in the rain: Piccadilly? Oxford? One of the circuses flew by, then more side streets. She knew the East End of London even less than the western sections they’d just fled. She had vague memories of docks and Whitechapel and long lines of seedy rowhouses and very little else.

“Where are we going?” she finally ventured.

Craig didn’t remove his gaze from the rainy road ahead. “Somewhere safe,” he said and left it at that.

She nodded, saying nothing, and leaned back again. The night was catching up with her: the shocks, the heartbreak, the near-constant running. And now she’d killed a man-a murderer, perhaps, but nevertheless, another human being. The enormity of it pressed in on her, shutting down her senses. Despite her best efforts to remain alert, she drifted away, out of the rain and the death and the horror into soothing oblivion.